When choosing RAM, everyone first looks at the frequencies specified in MHz, in other words, the RAM (Random Access Memory) speed. Questions have been asked about the importance of memories and their impact on performance for years. In short, we can say that higher frequencies are better, but this answer is not sufficient.
Random access memory plays a crucial role in performance because it acts as temporary storage for data that your processor needs to access quickly. We wouldn’t be wrong if we said that the most important factor that directly affects RAM performance is frequency. The delay times (timings) that we have previously explained at length are also important, but frequencies come to the fore more.
Current processors from AMD and Intel now offer support for high frequency speeds with DDR5 support. Although CPUs offer native support for speeds such as DDR4-3200 and DDR5-5600, it is possible to see frequencies such as DDR-4000 and DDR5-8000 with overclocking (custom profiles).
In this guide, we will try to discuss in detail what RAM frequency means, its effects on performance and all other details. First, let’s briefly talk about what random access memories are.
What is RAM?
Random access memory, or RAM, is one of the most fundamental elements of computing. Random access memory is used in most devices we use, especially laptops, desktop computers, smartphones and tablets, although sometimes of different types. RAM is a temporary memory bank where your computer stores the data it is currently working on. It is always ready for quick access to data. This way, when your processor wants to perform a task, it can instantly access all the necessary information.
Whether it is a desktop computer (with Windows, MacOS or Linux operating system), tablet or smartphone, or a computing device for the Internet of Things (smart television, etc.). ) Every computing device has a RAM. Almost all computers also have non-volatile storage for longer-term access. However, business processes are completed on RAM.
Frequencies and MT/s
DRAM frequency is usually measured in MHz, but the product name often specifies the data rate in MT/s. For example DDR5-5600. Following the introduction of double data rate RAM (DDR), memory manufacturers prefer to use data rate and frequency interchangeably to make it easier for buyers. Although this is not true, it has been used by the entire technology world for a while. We always include the terms “frequency” and “MHz”, but actually data rate (MT/s) should be used to define it.
What is RAM Frequency? What Affects Memory Speed?
To begin with, RAM speed is a bit of a misnomer, but it is widely used. How fast your system RAM is actually depends on frequency, bandwidth, total number of channels, amount, double data rate (DDR), latency, and It even depends on various factors such as the speed/general architecture of your processor. When most users talk about RAM speed, they are actually referring to the frequency of RAM (the number of commands it can process per second). However, let us especially note that there are different factors.
RAM frequency is measured in MHz and increases exponentially with DDR4 versions. For example, a RAM described as 8 GB DDR4-2400 operates at a frequency of 2400 MHz. RAM frequencies typically vary from 800 MHz in older DDR2 modules to 8000 MHz in DDR5. says .
There is an important point to remember here: RAM cannot perform instruction operations like the CPU can. So while a higher CPU frequency means better PC performance (almost always), the same may not be true for high-frequency RAM. So while higher frequency RAM is technically faster, this additional speed may not always translate into better real-world performance.
The drives used to store data (SSD or HDD) are much slower for task management due to their structure. These are also called static memory. DDR means “Double Data Rate” and is directly related to the DRAM frequency.
Basically, DDR RAM has a special characteristic that it can transfer two signals per clock cycle. Moreover, when you have an even number of DDR memory (like 2-4) with the same feature, they can work as dual channel. Thus, multi-core processors can access the information they need through more than one channel. For any DDR RAM to reach its full speed and be synchronized, at least one more RAM is needed. When you use 4 RAM modules (a supported chipset and CPU are required), you can benefit from quad-channel memory performance.
When you use a single module, you are limited to a single channel and your data rate is halved from dual channels. On an important note, your frequency remains the same, but the dual channel advantage is lost. Let’s say we have one X LPX 3600 CL16 DDR4 RAM and let’s try to explain the details with items:
- This memory operates at 1800 MHz Frequency, not 3600 MHz.
- The RAM we have can transfer data at 3600 MT/s (two transfers per hour, 1800 * 2), and this is where the “3600” in the product name comes from.
- We installed another one of the same module into our computer and we had 2 memories. Both still continue to operate at 1800 MHz, the frequency does not change.
- On the other hand, the transfer rate is still the same: 2 transfers per hour = 3600 MT/s.
- However, we can now use our memories in dual channel mode.
- Thanks to two access channels to the memory area, a multi-core CPU can now access RAM modules separately via two channels. Since the data transfer channel is doubled, the transfer speed can be doubled. Just like the flow of vehicles on a single-lane and double-lane road. So we are currently making 4 transfers per hour. 2 transfers thanks to DDR and 2 transfers thanks to dual channel.
- If there is a slot on the motherboard and the CPU and the motherboard offer this support, quad channel support can be used.
In addition, let us point out that the use of dual channel memory does not always provide great performance advantages. The performance difference depends on what you’re doing, the game you’re playing, and whether each CPU core needs full access to memory.
Is RAM Speed Important? How Does Memory Affect Performance?
Short answer: It depends. Let’s dig a little deeper. RAM speed is affected by three basic things: higher frequencies, lower latencies, and more channels. Each of these factors is completely different from each other and affects RAM performance in different ways.
Frequency or clock speed is the simplest one: When you increase the frequency, performance also increases. Increasing the frequency increases memory bandwidth, or the amount of data that can be transferred at any given time. It’s pretty simple and RAM overclocking basically works the same way as CPU/GPU overclocking. However, differences in RAM frequency can have a fairly subtle effect on performance depending on how big of a boost you get and whether there are other, more immediate bottlenecks in your system.
Latency is the other side of the coin because low latency does not increase the amount of data transferred per second, but reduces the time required for the CPU and RAM to communicate. Manually reducing the latency is much more complex and difficult than increasing the frequency. For this reason, most users do not want to spend time on the fine details of latency times. Manufacturers also make things easier with ready-made profiles (XMP, EXPO technologies) that can be set via BIOS.
There’s one more thing to note about frequency and delay: When you fiddle with the settings to improve one, you usually negatively affect the other. It is very difficult to increase the frequency while improving the delay values, and the same goes for the opposite. If you want to overclock, you may face problems when you increase the frequency alone. In such cases, you may need to relax the delay values a little more.
Memory channels are not something you can change in the settings menu and we have talked about this in detail. Motherboards and processors offered to the end consumer generally offer only two memory channels. If you have two or four RAM sticks, they will work in dual channel mode. If you only have a single memory, your RAM will operate in single channel mode, which causes a serious disadvantage in terms of memory bandwidth.
Why is RAM Speed Important?
It’s all about the CPU, which needs to access a lot of data that can be transferred quickly. CPUs actually have their own special high-speed memory called cache, but as you know, the amount of these memories is very low. Processors, which are the brains of our computer, will sooner or later want to pull some data from RAM. The faster the frequencies, the better the data transfer speed of RAM. If you have an actively running game or application If a large amount of data is needed, fast memories will show their effect at that moment..
Not all software is the same: Not all applications and games communicate with RAM the same way. Just like not all apps and games benefit from more CPU cores, faster individual cores, or faster graphics. The effect of faster RAMs is also Depends on what you do with your computer.
Honestly, you won’t notice much difference in basic desktop functions, including multitasking, when you increase your DRAM frequency. Especially when multitasking on your desktop, RAM capacity is much more important to your experience than DRAM frequency. If the game you are playing or the application you are running consumes a lot of memory, RAM capacity becomes a much more important factor. If the RAM capacity (such as 8 GB, 16 GB) is currently full, you may experience hangups, performance may decrease and your operations may be slow.
RAM frequency directly affects the performance of a computer system, especially in memory-intensive tasks such as gaming and video editing. Higher RAM frequencies generally result in higher data transfer rates, greatly improving system performance. In addition, increasing the RAM frequency results in shorter loading times and increased system response speed, especially in tasks that require fast processing and large data access. ı It can provide this.
However, the real impact of RAM frequency on performance lies in the performance of the system. May vary depending on specific hardware and software configuration. Let’s remind you again. In some cases, the performance increase from memory speed is significant, especially on tasks that are not heavily dependent on memory bandwidth. May be in very small amounts. In some cases, you may not even notice any difference.
Productivity Performance
Let’s take an Adobe Premiere test. DDR5 kits, which can reach higher frequencies in video processing applications such as Premiere, provide a roughly ~ 8% performance increase on the CPU compared to DDR4 memories. By the way, let us point out that DDR5 RAMs have much higher latency than DDR4. Therefore, even the first generation DDR5 memories, which generally offer high latency, can make a difference depending on the workload thanks to their frequencies.
As DDR5 technologies develop in the coming years, frequencies will increase further and low-latency memories will come to market. As we have emphasized, memory speed will not create the same performance difference in every task. In fact, the differences are generally below 5%. Sometimes the difference may not even be detected.
To understand the difference better, you can watch our video below:
How Does RAM Speed Affect Game Performance?
It’s a bit complicated to explain the effect of RAM frequency on game performance. The team and game engine behind each game may be different. There are many factors such as graphics, size of game skins, large map of the game, game type and coding.
While some game engines are inherently not affected by the DRAM frequency at all, more advanced game engines can benefit from higher frequencies. While there may be a performance difference of around 3-5% in some games, there may be no difference in others. However, there is a problem that even if the average FPS does not increase, you can see improvements in 1% and 0.1% FPS values.
What do these values show? 1% and 0.1% FPS values are used to isolate specific moments of extreme FPS drops that may occur in scenes where the game overloads the hardware.
So why is it so important to improve the 1% and 0.1% drops in FPS? If these numbers are closer to your average FPS, you can reduce sudden stutters, stutters and lags while playing games. RAM speed can also contribute positively to the overall performance of the system in this regard.
Additionally, when you run comparative tests with modern games running on the engines, you can see some pretty significant differences in frame rates. Some games can be improved to take better advantage of higher RAM frequencies.
We will soon move on to the comprehensive tests we conducted ourselves. First, let’s look at the comparisons made by different sources. For example, JayzTwoCents tested several games at 2133 MHz (stock speed without XMP enabled) and 3867 MHz. As you can see, FPS values have increased significantly:
Hardware Unboxed, compared DDR4 and DDR5 RAM in a total of 41 games. When averaged across such a wide range of games, the results show an increase in both average frame rate and peak rates of 1% across games:
For example, Far Cry 6 is one of the games that makes a big difference in terms of memory frequency:
techspothad shared benchmarks focusing specifically on frequency and latency in DDR4 and DDR5 memories. Looking at the results, there are no big differences, but we see that as the frequency difference is increased, the performance difference can increase to high levels. As for the business part, there are noticeable performance differences between slower and faster RAM when using Adobe Photoshop 2022.
2400MHz etc. 3600MHz etc. 4000 MHz: Gaming Performance
You can look at our detailed tests to see the difference:
4800MHz etc. 6000MHz
Another video of ours:
DDR4: How Much Do High Frequencies with XMP & EXPO Affect Games?
PCWorld, had done some tests, taking into account the delays. You can see all tested RAM speeds and latencies in the table below:
| RAM features | Delay |
|---|---|
| 2666MHz CL19-19-43 | ~14.25 ns |
| 3000MHz CL16-18-38 | ~10.67ns |
| 3000MHz CL14-14-14-34 | ~9.33 ns |
| 3200MHz CL16-18-18-38 | ~ 10.00 ns |
| 3200MHz CL14-14-14-34 | ~8.75 ns |
| 3600MHz CL18-22-42 | ~ 10.00 ns |
| 3600MHz CL16-16-36 | ~8.89 ns |
| 3800MHz CL18-22-22-42 | ~9.47 ns |
| 4000MHz CL18-22-22-42 | ~9.00 ns |
| 4000MHz CL17-17-37 | ~8.50 ns |
| 4266MHz CL18-26-26-46 | ~8.44 ns |
The Importance of RAM Frequency in AMD Processors
This is actually an issue that has been known for years. If you are using an AMD branded CPU, RAM frequency will affect overall system performance more. Fundamentally, AMD’s current Zen CPU architectures are inherently more dependent on RAM speed. This is due to the “Infinity Fabric” structure used by Ryzen processors, which is a small amount of on-die memory that the CPU will use for its own operation. When it comes to APUs, the importance of memory frequency doubles.
Below you can see a test with an AMD CPU. Of course, there will not be the same differences in every game, but in general, RAM frequency is more important in AMD signed chips. As the RAM speed increases on the AMD platform, there is a linear improvement in in-game performance.
However, the effective RAM speed is also limited by the “FCLK” measurement you see in these comparisons. FCLK is a term that refers to the clock speed of the Infinity Fabric within the AMD CPU. If FCLK is not 1:2 scale with your final RAM speed, it will actually cause performance degradation. Since Infinity Fabric depends directly on the effective RAM speed, this is why the fastest DDR4-4000 RAM is actually slower than DDR4-3800 RAM in the same scenario.
If you are using an AMD APU or Intel CPU with integrated graphics, the RAM speed will also greatly affect the performance of your integrated graphics as it will double the VRAM.
Can Single Channel RAM be Used?
We have talked about this issue many times, the answer is no. Always use dual channel RAM if possible. It is very easy to replace RAM on desktop computers, and this is a bigger problem for laptops.
Among all the factors affecting memory performance, dual channel mode is undoubtedly the most important. Besides being easy to activate (you only need to have two or four sticks of RAM), it also greatly improves performance in both applications and games. ir. By the way, the delay can sometimes be important, but usually it is not very important.
Check: At What MHz Does Your RAM Actively Operate?
For example, you purchased a RAM advertised as DDR4-3200. When you install these RAMs into your system, they may not operate directly at 3200 MHz.
Task Manager
The easiest way is to use Windows 10 and Windows 11’s built-in Task Manager:
- To open the Task Manager, press Ctrl + Shift + Esc or right-click the taskbar and then click Task Manager. ±n.
- Click on the Performance tab.
- Then, when you enter the Memory section on the left pane, you will see some information. As you can see in the screenshot “Speed: 2667 MHz”.
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- We need to make a reminder. Depending on your operating system version and build, half of your memory speed may appear in the Task Manager. For example, while my memories were running at 2666 MHz, I could see a value of 1333 MHz here. In such cases, do not forget to multiply the value by two.
Command Prompt
- Press Win + R keys simultaneously to open the Runs dialog box.
- Type “cmd” in the box and press Enter.
- Type the following command without quotes and press Enter.
“wmic memorychip get speed” ![]()
Windows PowerShell
- Right-click on the Start menu and click on “Windows Powershell (Administrator)”.
- Then type the following command without quotes and press Enter:
“Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_PhysicalMemory | Format-Table Devicelocator, Manufacturer, Speed” - Depending on the product, the RAM manufacturer and the slots it is installed in will also appear here:
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CPU-Z: How to Learn RAM Information?
CPU-Z is a very practical software to access detailed RAM information. You can download it from here and you can access information instantly.
In the CPU-Z Memory tab “DRAM FrequencyThe ” part shows the instantaneous operating frequency of the memory. Due to the “Double Data Rate” operating principle of the memory, we see half of the current speed here. Multiply the value you see by 2.
Memory Tab
- Type: RAM type of the computer. (DDR2, DDR3, DDR4)
- channel: In which channel mode our current memories operate.
- To you: The amount of memory currently used in the system.
- NB Frequency: Speed of the North Bridge.
